I would love to know what books yall think are excellent examples of showing over telling and what books you think do an exorbatant amount of telling over showing. I want to do a compare and contrast project of my own based on these recommendations

I've seen a lot of critiques on books that seem to always come down to the whole "this author does a lot of telling, not showing" argument.

Now, I think a lot of people take this stance and run with it to an extreme a lot because any sort of telling is often seen as something negative within a story when in reality depending on what/how/why an author is writing their story, some things NEED to be told directly to the audience. There are smoother ways to go about telling an audience certain things but telling is not a sign of a poorly written book. Telling and showing are tools that can be used at the author's discretion in whatever way is best to tell their story.

So I wanted to see what others think are excellent examples of using these tools and which ones are not. This should be interesting!

"...the gleam of fondness in his eyes is enough to quell the faint twinging of my stomach."

Oh girl, daddy issues got us both in a chokehold huh?

Seriously though I eat up ANY sort of father daughter relationship dynamic but especially ones like this. I will never tire of stories exploring parental issues and breaking away from someone who you have every instinct to follow and love yet you know in your gut is wrong.

So many delicious emotions come with stories like these

Is it just me or does anyone else feel weird that there's some fantasy books that seem to have a set up which the author intends to be some level of critique on colonialism, imperialism, exploitative capitalism, etc etc but by the end of the book the message is murky at best?

Like there's very clear messaging in the foreground or background of the story that frames the intended target idea as bad but the narrative ends with the book not really exploring the concept with any depth and the characters doing nothing about it or they even uphold the system in place?

The most glaring recent example of this for me is 'A Dark and Drowning Tide.' And let me tell you after getting through about 70% of that book having a fine old time, that messaging just smacked me across the face. I felt like I was in the Twilight Zone afterward going through reviews because I didn't see anyone talking about this glaring U Turn of politics.

I promise I'm not taking things that were in the background and making them more important than they are. That particular book makes the fantasy politics so integral to the main plot that it simply cannot be ignored.

Have any of yall had this experience with a book? I'm dying to discuss this with someone

I used to want to keep my books pristine but recently I've started tabbing and annotating my books. There's something so special about making a book my own and having a tangible experience scrawled within its pages.

I am curious to hear other peoples methods of tabbing and annotating?